Bhopal: The city on December 3 observed the 18th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster of December 1984 that killed thousands of people and affected many more. The disaster occurred following leakage of lethal Methyl Iso-Cyanate (MIC) gas from the plant of the multi-national Union Carbide.

Considering the very slow pace at which the case relating to the disaster is being heard in a local court these days, many gas victims have given up hope of seeing justice being done even in their life times. The case is now being heard at the court of chief judicial magistrate, where at the most two hearings take place in as many months.

Even if the case ends in the local court, it will be fought again in the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur and later in the Supreme Court. Coupled with this, the worry is about the fact that almost nothing seems to have been done to extradite Warren Anderson, who was chairman of Union Carbide Corporation at the time of the disaster and who is a declared absconder in the case.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has been telling the court of the chief judicial magistrate time and again that efforts were going on to extradite Anderson.

But how serious these efforts were became doubtful when a former American Ambassador to India, Frank Wisner stated at a press conference that his government had never received any application from the government of India for Anderson's extradition.

Another thing that rankles with the gas victims here is that those accused in the case are now being charged only with negligence and not with culpable homicide. This is being done as per a judgement given by the Supreme Court when A M Ahmadi was the chief justice.

Most of the people who suffered because of the disaster have been paid compensation from a sum of $ 875 million that was paid by the Union Carbide for a settlement in 1988. This amount was given to pay compensation to the victims and end the criminal liability of the company for the disaster.

After V P Singh became Prime Minister, the settlement was in a sense revoked and Union Carbide was once again charged with criminal complicity for the disaster. How long this will go on remains to be seen but there is no doubt that the memories on the disaster will never fade away from the minds of the people here.

PTI